Page 104

“Don’t worry about it, Joe.”

“If you want me to stop, just tell me what you’re gonna do.”

“I got some friends. We’re gonna set up a meetin’ between me and Paulie.”

“And you’re gonna kill him?”

“I’m gonna tell him what happened, the truth.”

“And what’s he gonna do then?”

“Nuthin’ he can do.”

“He could kill you.”

“The meetin’ will be, um, secure. No guns and only one guard each.”

“What if he brings Kenneth Rouche?”

Upon a truly evil smile, Arman said, “I gotta guy.”

24.

WHEN I GOT back to the Royal Palace, Oliya was waiting for me in the sitting room. Drinking black tea, she was reading a flimsy newspaper that was, I think, printed in Romanian. I saw her first, but she looked up soon after I entered the room. There was a small mark under her left eye. She smiled and put the paper down beyond the teapot.

“What happened to your eye?” I asked, lowering into the chair across from her.

Her smile broadened.

“Tea?” she offered.

“No, thanks.”

Before we could continue, the sitting room attendant, a smallish red-haired woman with pale skin, a constellation of freckles, and tremendous ochre eyes, approached us.

“Angel’s Envy?” she asked.

I nodded. She smiled and moved off.

“They decided to test me,” Oliya said.

“Test you?” This explained her smile. “Why?”

Hunching her brawny shoulders, she said, “I told them that I had worked for the International Operatives Agency for six years. When Mr. Antonucci heard about it he asked them to bring me to their gym. He came down with a man named Roland, a big guy with weight-lifter muscles.

“Just in our street clothes he had us get into a fighters’ ring and said that he’d like to see me survive three minutes against his man. That’s the word he used: survive. So I grabbed Roland’s left arm, swung up on his shoulders, got him in a chokehold, and yanked until he fell on his back. When we hit the mat, the back of his head bumped me under the eye. It didn’t matter, though—he was already unconscious.”

“What did Paulie say about that?”

“Nothing. He just walked out.”

“Sounds like him. So you didn’t get the job?”

“Oh. No. They hired me. Gave me a senior position and my first assignment.”

“How’s Roland?”

“They took him to a clinic for observation.” Olo was trying her best not to sneer.